Online Public Relations Thoughts

Daily entries on Public Relations and communications ideas and trends

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Defense

I find this site interesting. It is part of counterwarfare on the Web. The site tells you who is clicking on your pay-per-click advertisements and driving up your costs unfairly. It was started by a gentleman who discovered a competitor was having click-fests at the gentleman's expense.

What does this have to do with PR? Not much. But it struck me because it shows again how the semi-anonymity of the internet can bring out the worst in people. That is a topic about which PR practitioners should be deeply familiar. The web has its share of goodness. In fact, it started with a grandly ideal concept of people helping people. I remember those days: They didn't last. The creeps found the web as quickly as the idealists, and the creeps have been abusing it ever since.

It would be nice if there were a site for PR practitioners to tell who is throwing insults at their organizations so one could confront them but I am not aware of one. So while advertisers can tell who is clicking whom with a simple program, we have to work harder.

The internet because of its massive coverage is an analog of human nature. Sometimes, human nature isn't nice.